


Lover of Mine

by noneedforacrown



Category: Anne of Green Gables (TV 1985) & Related Fandoms, Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV), L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Heartache, M/M, Pining, Secret Letters, Suspenders, detective!anne, flowers are important-take note!, the song lover of mine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:20:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 14,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23697646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noneedforacrown/pseuds/noneedforacrown
Summary: It’s a fun summer at Aunt Jo’s. There are tea parties and drunk nights. Anne, an amateur investigative journalist moves on from the love of her life, Gilbert Blythe, when she finds out he's to marry someone else. She finds love anew in the arms of Roy Gardner, a kindhearted, smart-eyed, young man. As they intern at Charlottetown Gazette they stumble upon the darkness proliferating in the secret shadows of their beloved town, puppeteered by the town's most regarded- the Prince.As Roy and Anne navigate the intricate mesh of the syndicate in hiding, it's all hands on deck. Their friends, a sword-bearing seamstress, a smart-mouthed florist and his no-nonsense boyfriend, a banana bread king, a gang of budding feminists in gowns and suspenders- are willing to risk all that they hold dear to uncloak the lurking evil, and help a friend out.This is a tale of loyalty, camaraderie, and lovers. One that chronicles the struggles of being the good man in a storm.Can the love lost between Anne and Gilbert be rekindled? Even when she finds out he has joined forces with the enemy?Can true love, be truly lost?
Relationships: Cole Mackenzie/Original Male Character(s), Gilbert Blythe & Josephine Barry, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley, Josephine Barry & Anne Shirley, Josie Pye & Cole Mackenzie, Royal "Roy" Gardner/Anne Shirley
Comments: 43
Kudos: 105





	1. Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice

Wet flowers dripped their colour onto his shoes. Gilbert sat unmoved as the train rattled away and the rain smote down on the windows, all unaware of how still his heart had become. If it were not for the unrelenting speed of the train car, he would have still been standing at the station getting drenched by merciless rainfall. Now, however, their falling comforted him. You see, for he was falling too.

In his memories, she stood. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers holding down his erratic uncertainty. As July rain enveloped them, they swayed under its glory. Her cerulean dress, her fire hair, her kind eyes. She was there, just like from one of his dreams. He was there too. Just, hidden by a brick wall. He watched her, with flowers in hand, peonies. They were meant for her. He looked on as she fit right into his embrace, the way his arms circled her waist, the way her palm rested on his face. He watched as the woman of his dreams kissed someone who was not him. The sound of the rain clouded the sound of his heart shattering within his chest.

As he sat in his stiff seat he recalled how not too long before, he sat in the same seat as Diana chided him for not responding to Anne’s letter. The letter in which she confessed that she felt similarly. The letter that he never had the chance to read. How he had the honey of hope lighten up his blood and how he thought she loved him too. How he ran around town with his heart in his hands, searching for her address, searching for her. He let himself believe and then--stood by watching, helplessly, as someone in white linen sleeves slipped into his dream and made it his own. He had foolishly convinced himself that Anne, Anne Shirley Cuthbert might want anything to do with him. Diana had to have been mistaken, or maybe, and this one hurt him beyond belief, maybe Anne doted on him, as he spent his evenings with someone else. Maybe she waited for him and eventually, got tired of waiting. Maybe he was too late. 

Defeated he laid his head onto the train’s shuddering wall and wondered if this was fair. Why couldn’t they love each other at the same time? Why couldn’t he see that it was Anne? It was always Anne. He thought of her every time he thought of home, every Avonlea story he narrated on the Trinidadian ship centred around her. He played along with Bash’s incessant jokes about his tiny crush on this girl from Avonlea, he spent way too long cutting carrots. He smiled ridiculously at the pen she had lent him, during the most important exam of his life. Why wasn’t it obvious to him before? How could he have missed it? And how could he have missed her? 

Her heart must have broken too, much like his was breaking. Is this how she felt that night at the fair? When he had trouble focusing on Winnie and was staring at Anne for half the night, he was sure that all she must have noticed was that it was Winnie he danced with. It was Winnie whose hands he held. It was Winnie who he smiled at. It was Winnie who he was allowed to kiss. That’s all he would have noticed if it was Anne and her new love on the dance floor instead of him and her. She must have slept that night, certain that he wasn’t interested in her. She couldn't have possibly known that it was her he intended to dance with, it was her he smiled at when she wasn’t paying attention, it was her he wanted to kiss. Yet, she slept knowing that it wasn’t her. That she was not the one on his mind. That it could never be her. He felt like it should have been a crime to make her feel this unloved, and perhaps it was. Perhaps this was his punishment. For now, that he was falling in love with her she was falling out of love with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read this far, thank you! I was listening to the latest 5SOS album (CALM) and when 'Lover of Mine' came up, a particular lyric struck a chord, and I found myself here. This whole body of work is a product of an accident. This is also keeping me creatively occupied during the quarantine. Hope y'all are keeping safe and staying home. The first chapter is up! More to come!


	2. Sweet Beginnings

“Anne it’s not funny, alright?” Ruby huffs while she kneads the dough with every last bit of her energy pulsing through her hands and onto the clump on the marble. “I want the pie to be perfect.” 

The three girls are propped around Aunt Jo’s kitchen, busy in their own world, as the August afternoon wades on. Chirping sparrows sing as swallows dance around. Golden shafts of sunlight brightly paint the room. The scent of yeast wafts between the walls.

“Eh, Moody will eat anything you make him, even if it's half baked” laughs Josie.

“It’s serious!" Ruby exclaims. "Oh, and Anne, please stop doing that. You’re getting dust everywhere” she instructs as she wipes the flecks of flour off her cheek with her wrist.

“Ruby, I promise nothing will happen to your dear cake,” Anne reassures her as she tries to clamber at the top of the kitchen cabinets, rummaging for something.

“Pie.” Ruby reminds, frazzled, “I am baking a pie!” she wildly gesticulates.

“Yes, pie.” Anne parrots, distracted. She fixes the bandana keeping her hair out of her face a little tighter and she cautiously balances herself at the top rungs of the ladder, thankful for having chosen to wear trousers. Pants, she found, were far more convenient.

“Are you looking for your letterbox?” Josie questions as she gets up from the island stool and tucks stray strands of her hair that escaped the hold of her bun, neatly behind her ear. Anne grunts, still groping around for an intricate chest.

“Okay, enough” announces Ruby, ‘Second row from the left, top drawer.”

Anne had been looking for the antique chest that she had received along with her mother’s copy of ‘The Language of Flowers”. It had her family name, ‘Shirley’ embossed on the lockplate and had golden roses encrusted on its lip. Anne simply adored it, she imagined her mother trusting it with her zircon and pink quartz pendants and how fitting she found that now it was the keeper of their secrets. It held the pages that would write their future. It was important and it was hidden at the topmost shelf of their kitchen cabinet. 

Anne queries, “Did you keep it here?” 

Ruby hums.

Josie extends her hand tenderly to help Anne off the ladder, “Did you get another one?”

“It’s from Toronto, so it has to be”

“Are you going to open it...right now?” Josie’s irises shift to the open windows, afraid of unseen ears. 

Anne’s fingers play along the wooden slats of the box, “Let’s open it tonight after everyone’s asleep,” she whispers.

“I’ll take this to my room then, for safekeeping.” Josie says as her knuckles clasp onto the tiny trunk’s lid, “Help her out, will you?” 

“I can hear you, you know” annoyance rings in Ruby’s tone

“Well, you are bludgeoning the cake.”

“Pie.” Anne remarks.

“Not going to be one, by the time she is done with it.” Josie winks as she fashionably trots back, and then turns to step into the hallway.

“She doesn’t know what she is talking about,” Anne comforts a flour-besmirched Ruby, as she pours a teaspoon of vanilla extract onto the moon of the dough, in hopes of salvaging it.


	3. Come Home Someday

An easel, a blank canvas and a garden of tulips. Josie’s nose is dabbed with the shade of peony pink she has been applying to the flowers on her painting. “Cole” she gesticulates “You’re blocking the light, hon”

“Okay but” he moves to stand next to her, “What if Eric isn’t like me? What if he likes girls?”

“He likes you, Cole,” Josie replies, burying her nose deeper into her tulips, “I have seen it on his face.”

“I don’t know about that,” he says, restlessness apparent in his tone. Afar, birds chirp around buttercups.

“Okay,” Josie says, keeping her brush on the sill, and placing herself on the veranda steps. “Sit”

“I am just really worried that this is a bad idea.” He says as he follows suit.

“Let’s refresh some facts. Where did you meet Eric?”

“In Paris, during my summer abroad.”

“Be specific.” she nudges him.

“At an underground pride festival.”

“So maybe there’s a chance he likes boys too?”

“Maybe…”

For a moment they both sit at the stoep, basking in the possibility of a wondrous love in their future. The wind was cold but the colours were bright.

“You should tell him how you feel Cole. It’s not always that love befalls us, and when it does, and when we’re sure of it, it lies in our best interest that we declare it.”

Cole looks on, his fingers fidgeting with his buttons. Josie continues, “Listen, I know that you’re afraid, but this is a good thing. There’s no need to keep your feelings secret. If he likes you too, he is lucky. If he doesn’t, you are. You should tell him and relieve yourself.”

“So you’re finally painting the tulips?” Cole smiles.

“I am trying to not let my fear get in my way.” she smiles back, knowingly.

“Let’s... try together?” his breath now calmer, he stretches his hand toward her, she takes it.

“Together.” There’s a moment of comfort, one that soothes the aches of life.

The telephone inside rings. “I’ll get it,” Diana announces from within the house.

“When are you planning on telling him?” Josie asks Cole.

“Maybe we’ll join you and Anne for the next women’s march, or so.”

“You’ll tell him then?”

“No, but right after. I think I’ll tell him then. I think the gelato will help.”

“Please, you just want an excuse to have some Dulce de Leche!” Josie laughs.

“Who do you think has called?” Cole remarks in an attempt to dodge further inquisition into his plans.

“Probably Derek. No, no that was in January. Maybe it’s Josh,” Josie posits, “or wait!... Who’s Jane seeing now?”

“Mark I think, but then Jason was here last week so…?”

“No, no Jason was from last Christmas, remember? She said he hated gingerbread man, so she said they couldn’t see each other anymore.”

“So it must be Mark then”

“Mark always called in the mornings. It’s nearly half-past three in the afternoon.”

“Then I don’t know Josie,” Cole exhales, after a moment he adds, “You think she needs an intervention? She’s burning through suitors. I mean, usually, I am all for that, but maybe we should talk to her.”

“It’s not wrong to have plenty of suitors or short-lived romances. She is just trying to see what works for her and is unwilling to settle. I can respect that.”

“Yes, but breaking up over gingerbread man? I feel like we should see if something’s bothering her.”

“Cole, I don’t seem to think anything's the matter. Besides, it doesn’t look like the call’s for Jane. Diana is still on it.”

“Regardless, I think we should talk to Jane once. Anne would agree.” he shrugs his shoulders, matter-of-factly.

“You can be very insistent, you know that?”

Cole straightens his lapel, “One of my finest qualities.”

“I am still not convinced though. I just don’t think it’s our place.” her easel stands in the garden overlooking the bed of flowers.

“of course it is! She is our friend Josie. It’s our job to let her know that it’s okay to not be seeing anyone if that’s what she truly prefers.”

A minute goes by, no one says anything. Except for Diana in the living room, who’s still on call.

“Ruby is making Pie, you know?” Josie says abruptly.

“Moody’s about to have a field day.”

“Let’s stage the intervention during tea time? Over pie?”

“Perfect! We should also involve Anne, she’d love to partake in a coup.”

“She would! Oh wait, maybe we should employ Roy too. They could set an example, perhaps?” Josie posits.

Cole winces at her proposal, “Maybe not, I don’t think he and Anne should be giving courting advice.”

“Why do you say that?”

“For starters, she is still in love with Gilbert Blythe. ”

“Anne fancies Gilbert?” The world stops, “Wait...still in love? When was she ever in love with him in the first place? Oh, wait, Roy. God! Roy! He will be devastated.” Josie realises, “Cole, are you certain? Is it true, what you said? She loves Gilbert?”

“It’s true.” he nods. “Anne read the letter she wrote for Gilbert to Diana and me.”

“So? Did she ever send it?” Josie’s thoughts, as frazzled as her heartbeat.

“She did, but he went ahead and married Winnie--”

“No he didn’t.” interrupts Josie, furrowing her eyebrows “He called off the wedding last minute.”

“What? He did what?” Cole’s voice, as sharp as cracking ice, “Anne told me he never said anything, and the last I heard he was sending out wedding invites. He called it off?”

“Yes! I am sure.” Josie stands up, heated now, “My father booked Winifred’s cruise to Paris. That’s how I got to know.”

“Do you think it was because of the letter?” The world suddenly mute, the sun rays blinding.

“We have to talk to Anne. This is ridiculous. Does she think Gilbert is married?” Josie brims like a steeping kettle, “How doesn’t Anne know? Even Diana knows that Gilbert isn’t married.”

“God, she’s still on call.” Cole notices, “Diana!” he belts across the room, “How much longer?”

“One moment.” Diana speaks to the receiver bulb of the telephone handle “It’s from Gilbert!” she shouts back, “He says he’ll be in Charlottetown tomorrow.”

Cole and Josie exchange fervent looks of panic. 

They know what they have to do. Cole adds with urgency, “Invite him to tea!”


	4. Cradling the Twilight

Crystal maple leaves drifted down and rested upon the soft grass. Anne was soothed by warm lavender tea and the sound of muffled rainfall on the glass. Halogen lamps had come to life in their red-bricked mansion as the evening drifted into a heavy slumber. She wanted nothing more than the comfort of her bed or maybe another book. 

She listened to the fire crackle mix with softened dialogues, their sound coming from the living room below. There seemed to be some hubbub. She could hear china clatter, wooden chairs being shuffled. Damp tones of lazy laughter crept their way up to her. A hallo of honey light illuminated the hallway and snuck their way into her room from under the door. The cloud of chiming voices seemed to be moving out onto the garden. Anne peeked from her window.

Aunt Jo had been instructing men in white uniforms to set up the patio table. Ruby had a casserole in hand and stood next to her, supervising. Cole was arranging pink spray roses and embedding them with baby’s breath as he sat on the stoep steps. Jane and Diana were busy placing candles on their brass stands, as they hovered over the white-clothed table. “Who’s coming over for tea?” Anne asked an asleep Tillie. There was no response. She had to go investigate herself.

Her feet, like pearls unfurled atop stairs, cascaded their way down.

“Aunt Josephine!”

“Anne, dear. We were just about to call you.” her eyes crinkled with unexpected glee.

The slate grey sky overhead overshadowed the icy winds. Anne immediately missed the warmth of the inside.

“Pink or white?” Aunt Jo queried, pointing at two different curtains.

“White. Who’s coming over?” Anne asked in one breath.

“Okay then, white it is.” Aunt Jo ordered the men,” It’s getting rather gloomy.”

“Flowers will brighten this place up,” Cole interjected.

“Aunt Josephine, who is coming over?” Anne tried again.

“Your Gilbert Blythe.”

A stone fell into her stomach, “He’s not mine.”

“Well, he’s coming over.” They watched as the white curtains were being strung around the patio pillars by the uniformed men.

“My pie is getting cold.” Ruby looked at Anne.

“I’ll go keep it in the oven.”

“Oh, he’ll be here any minute now.” Aunt Jo leaned into Ruby’s ear, “Besides if he isn’t, we’ll dive in.” It made her giggle.

“Let me hold that for you,” said Moody, appearing out of thin air.

“No, thank you. I am perfectly capable.”

She hadn’t told him about the pie yet.

“Okay then, suit yourself,” he smirked as he picked up a box of ceramic dishes and waltzed over to the table to start plating them. He and Jane shared a glance, and she moved her candle stands so he could start placing the plates. He nodded her a thanks.

Ruby sighed, heavily.

“I can hold it for you.” Anne offered.

“Anne.” she chided.

“Yes, sorry.”

“So Gilbert is coming over? When did this happen?” Ruby inquired. Pelicans circled the skies. 

Aunt Jo raised her cane to point at Diana, “Ask her. Apparently, he’s in town.”

“He’s been in town before. He’s never come over.” Anne observed.

“New traditions, darling.”

“New traditions?” Anne scoffed.

Aunt Jo and Ruby looked at each other, expecting answers.

“Maybe you should keep it in the oven.” Ruby handed the casserole to Anne. Anne limply took what was being handed over.

Ruby asked once she saw Anne’s silhouette disappear, “Did you know about her aversion to Gilbert?”

“All too well.” Aunt Jo responded.

Diana whispered to Moody at the patio table, "Where’s Josie?”

“No idea. Why?”

“Just, uh” she looked around and found Cole on the stoep.

“Hey! Cole! Need you here.” She beckoned.

Cole walked over with the bunch of flowers he had been arranging. He placed them in the porcelain vase kept at the centre. He had to make some more trips to fill all the vases.

“Diana?”

“Cole, listen.” She waited for Moody to give the two of them some privacy, and he shook his head lightly as he walked out of frame. Diana hushed, “Gilbert isn’t just coming for tea.”

Puzzled, he waited for her to continue.

“He called about a message from Miss Stacy.”

“Okay…”

Frazzled by the length of the story Diana refocused, and restarted, “Gilbert likes Anne.”

“Is that why you called me over? To tell me he likes her? Because honestly Diana, everybody knows.”

“No, I mean, he called off his wedding for her.”

“I know that.”

“You know? How?”

“Josie. We put two and two together.”

“Does Anne know?” Diana’s face turned ghost-pale.

“Anne does not know.”

“That's going to have to change soon,” she mumbled.

“That’s why I asked you to invite him, Diana. Anne should know.”

“No Cole, you don’t understand. He’s not coming just for tea. He’s coming to stay for the weekend.”

“That's... even better?”

“Not really. I don’t want this to drag on any longer than it already has.”

“What do you mean?” Cole was having difficulty keeping up with the unfinished train of thoughts.

“I have known for a whole month! I watched Gilbert jump out of his body when he learnt about Anne’s letter. I watched as Anne and Roy courted. I watched and I watched and I watched. This has gone on long enough, no more.”

“Why is that a bad thing?” Cole was genuinely confused. Diana’s cause for misery was coming to an end, she should have been elated, not anxious, and yet…

“I asked him to confess his feelings to Anne, in person, because for whatever reason she didn’t read his letter. It took a lot of convincing.”

“Okay and…”

“And Josie invited Roy to tea! If Gilbert sees him, he will never tell Anne.”

“Josie must have had her reasons. Plus it will be fine. I am sure.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Autumn had overcome the garden. Slices of papayas and melons were being brought out. Moody remarked, “Are you done with your secret meeting?” as he placed a jug of lemon honey sherbert in front of them.

Cole smirked at Diana reassuringly, “Because they're fated. You’ll see”


	5. A Rose for the Lady

Glassy moonshine bottles lined Anne’s window, they were half-filled with water and half by her mother’s favourite flowers. Garden roses. As the sun had begun to set its light refracted from the thick white jars all over her room, leaving rainbow specs everywhere. She was glad the sun and its colours had re-entered her abode. Like the weather, her mood too had been changing shades just as swiftly. She caressed their petals. She loved watching them blossom.

“They are bright red, like your hair,” Roy’s voice echoed in her mind, “Maybe that’s why they were your mother’s favourite.” She blushed; he knew his way around her. She couldn’t wait to see him, especially since she learned that Gilbert would be there too.

“Did you pick out your dress?” Ruby was at the door.

“No, not yet. Have you?”

“I was thinking of trying on your indigo blue dress, would you mind?” she walked in, taking a seat right next to Anne on her bed.

“Not at all.”

“Hey,” Ruby’s eyes lit up, “I have the perfect dress for you,” she dashes to her cupboard and pulls out a pink tourmaline evening gown, “Don’t you just love it? It has white laces! I know how much you love that.”

“Pink…” Anne wonders aloud.

“Oh, Anne." Ruby's shoulders droop, "I'm sorry. Right. You don’t wear pink."

“I wear pink,” Anne protests, calmly. Still sitting, her hands upon her lap.

“No, Anne. It's okay," she starts to put the dress away, "You don’t have to.”

“Ruby, times have changed” Anne’s voice lighter now, as she walks up to the cupboard, “I don’t despise my hair anymore.” She takes the dress by the hanger and reviews the way it looks on her in the mirror, “I like how I look. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“So,” Ruby’s smile apparent in her tone, “you’ll wear the dress?” she asks and she waits.

Anne nods; her cheer brightening up the room.

“You’ll wear the dress!” Ruby, in her uncontrollable joy, pulled her into an embrace. “Oh, Anne! I have so many pink dresses to lend you!” They stood there, for a minute, encircled in each other’s arms. “I am afraid," blurts Ruby out of nowhere.

“Why? Is it Moody?”

“More like, it's his pie.”

“And? What about it?”

“I don’t know, I don’t want him to leave me ‘cause I can’t cook. Anne, I have never cooked a day in my life.”

“Did he say he’d leave you” Anne breaks the embrace, now holding onto her arms, “if you couldn’t whip up some pie?” small scarlet waves of vexation ran underneath her tone.

“He didn’t have to. Don’t boys turn their noses up when you can’t perform wifely duties?” Ruby’s stature was crumbling.

“Boys do,” a voice from the doorway interjects. 

The girls look up at the intruder. 

He continues, “but men don’t.” 

It was Roy. What a sight for sore eyes.

He asks, seating himself beside Ruby, “Is this, wifely duties, something you want?”

She venomously points out, "It doesn’t matter what I want, does it? 

“Of course it does!” revolts Anne, getting tired of this patriarchal nonsense.

“He won’t ever love me if I can't even bake a simple pie!”

“Then he won’t” Anne spits, frigidly. “You deserve better love, Ruby. You deserve real love, not some imposter love that’s only here for some pie.”

“I don’t follow,” exhausted she relents.

“It should not be your job to make him love you,” Anne continues.

Roy adds, “You shouldn’t have to give up on your dreams, your ambitions, what you want of life under any circumstance.” 

Anne beams proudly, “Yes, see? Roy and I, are not in it for the pie. Are we, Roy?”

“No, we are not,” he crosses his arms, suppressing a smile that tried to escape his lips.

“See Ruby? Roy will stay. He will stay even if I can't make a mean blueberry ginger pie.”

“Though,” Roy says in deep thought, “You do make a mean blueberry ginger pie.” Anne shoots him a look, he retracts, “Not the time, got it.”

“Point is, he’ll stay Ruby. If he truly loves you, he’ll stay. If you detest the thought of coating the bread with egg wash or preparing the yeast for the batter, then you shouldn’t have to sweat over it all afternoon, in fear of being abandoned.” She pauses and then dramatically says, “If moody wants pie, he can bake it himself.”

“Yes and” Roy takes the baton, “if he wants to leave, the door is right there,” he said pointing, not sparing any theatrical emphasis.

Ruby laughs as she wipes away a stray tear, “I’ve never done this before.”

“Yes, but you don’t have to do this alone,” Anne says holding onto her hand.

Soon enough Ruby had folded Anne’s dress over her arm and made her way out, slightly less anxious, slightly more consoled.

“It’s just you and me now,” Roy smirks.

“I have to change Roy,” Anne attempts a push-away.

“You know,” he says audaciously, “it’s nothing I haven't seen before.” as he leans onto the door frame. 

Anne folds her arms against her chest trying to hide her miserably flushed demeanour, “Aunt Jo, better not have heard you, mister.”

“Or?” he treads towards her, a smile painting his face vibrant. 

She could hear her every heartbeat trip with his every step but she stands her ground.

He queries cheekily, “No blueberry ginger pie for me?” standing dangerously close to her. 

She fights back a smile of her own, circling her arms around his neck, “No blueberry ginger pie for you.”

Quietly his hands slip into their place around her waist, “Oh c’mon. You said it yourself,” a devilish grin plays on his lips as he whispers into her ear, “I will stay. I will stay even if there’s no blueberry ginger pie.”

“Lucky for you,” Anne breaks into a smile and buries her head in his woollen vest, “there will always be pie.”

“You know what else is scrumptious?” Anne continues, not giving him any chance to pipe in with coquetry “Breadsticks and fondue.”

"Okay, fine. I’ll go,” he expresses withdrawing from her, “not because you’ve enticed me away with cheese and bread but because you want some time alone with yourself and I’ll respect that.”

He was warm and the room was cold. She hadn’t expected this observation especially because she hadn’t noticed the difference. She certainly didn’t feel the brazenness of the cold until he had moved away. Then again she could feel the cold because she now knew what warmth felt like.

“Oh and here is something,” he mumbles, as he pulls it out of his pocket. A rose. A red one. The colour her cheeks were now turning.

“There you go,” he kisses the flower bud before dipping it into one of the less populated moonshine bottles kept on the window sill, “It’s still a bud, I know you like to watch them bloom” 

He reaches for the door handle and swiftly takes his leave. He was quick, she didn’t even get a chance to thank him.

She was right. He did know his way around her. He knew exactly how to make his way into her heart, and he was here to stay.


	6. Don’t Hide Away

Blue skies turn darker, the passing of time now weighing on him. He was thankful for the pond in the forest behind Aunt Jo’s backyard, for he had retreated to it. He had wandered here in hopes of getting lost, but instead, he happened upon the most mystical pond in all of the land. As red ribbons of light were calmed by the blue of twilight, the water scintillated as if the stars had descended upon it. Gilbert sat still, upon mossy rocks, hoping to overcome his nerves. The water he finds cools his skin but not so much his mind.

“I can’t keep living like this. I can’t,” he voices his thoughts to the flaming red water lilies, that floated dreamily, listening.

“The moment my mind is free, unengaged, it races to her. I stand at the station, and when a train from Avonlea makes its stop in Toronto, I wait for one of the passengers to be her.” The lilies unsurprised, float on. 

“When I get a letter in the mail, I hope it’s from Anne, and am always let down, when it’s not. So, naturally- I’m always let down nowadays. Disappointed because the letter’s not from her, disappointed that she isn’t in that coffeehouse, disappointed that she wasn’t on the train. It’s funny, you see,” he adds to the patient fiery petals, “It used to be her. The letters were from her. The passenger was her, and now they aren’t,” he sighs.

The silver water pools around his ankles, in an attempt to soothe what was hurting. “I can’t keep hoping that it’s her. I don’t want to spend my life searching for her in every room I enter.” The lilies start folding inwards, realising that the night had fallen. It reminds Gilbert that it was getting late and that he should be on his way.

“Gilbert?”

“Anne?” he looks up.

“Josie, actually.”

“Sorry couldn’t tell,” he turns to look at her.

She stands, bathed by moonlight. It could have easily been Anne, Gilbert thinks to himself.

“Talking to the frogs are we?” she jokes.

He scoffs, “Please. Talking to frogs,” he points with his palm, “I am talking to the lilies.”

“Oh, fancy. I came here for the frogs,” she reveals as she sits next to him.

“Shouldn’t you be at the tea thing?” Gilbert prompts.

“Shouldn’t you be at the tea thing?” Josie mimics. He nods, giving up.

“I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” she proposes.

“Deal,” he guffaws

“Were you chopping onions?”

Gilbert furrows his eyebrows, “No? Wha-?”

“Just something you said to Anne,” Josie waves her wrist. “There are tears on your face.”

“No no,” he denies, “it’s lake-water.”

“This is not a lake,” Josie notes.

“So pond water.”

“Your clothes are not wet.”

“Why would they be wet?”

“Because your face is.”

“Jesus Josie,” He says turning away from her, facing the pond.

“No, it’s not Jesus Josie. It’s... Jesus Christ.”

He stabs her with a probationary look, she pulls away defensively. “Alright. Bad joke." but a look couldn't deter Josie Pye, "Let’s just say you were chopping onions then.”

He looks up, pretending to be insulted. “Excuse me?”

“Taste your own medicine Doctor Blythe.”

“I’m not a doctor.” he asserts

“Yet,” she emphasises.

Gilbert smiles, “Yet.”

“Blythe.” a solemn change in her tone. “You seem sad.”

He digs his heels deeper into the pond, “I am not sad.”

“Yes, and those are not tears.” she ridicules.

“They are not” he claims, decisively

It’s darker than it was before, the celestial sickle in the sky had sunk further toward the sea at the horizon. 

“You ever, lost out on something? Something you thought was destined.” Gilbert poses suddenly.

“Once” she is not thrown.

“How did you feel?” he enquires.

“Like you,” she smirks. Oh, she was smart.

“I thought we were having a moment,” he comments, shaking his head lightly.

“I thought you would have moved on by now,” Josie adds.

“Guess, we were both wrong.”

“Blythe,” she says kindly, “Anne loves Roy. So maybe don’t stir things up with a confession of some sort.”

“I--” he defends, but she doesn’t allow it, “Listen, I understand your pain-”

“Do you?” Gilbert cuts her off.

“No. Gilbert Blythe,” her tone stern, unyielding now, “you do not have a monopoly on pain.” Her voice softens as she continues, “Cole and Diana believe that she still loves you, but they’ve not met Roy.”

“Roy…” Gilbert finally learns his name. He would have preferred not knowing.

“Yes, Roy. Anne and Roy,” she underlines, “Anne and Roy,” and breathes in sharply, “I have seen them together. I have seen her with him. She is happy,” Josie’s voice trails. She picks up again, “Please do not mess with her happiness. If you truly love her, keep your sentiments to yourself.”

“I can’t live like this Josie,” he pleads but she looks away.

“Not for long, Gilbert.” Josie holds.

Unable to bear his heavy breathing she finally answers his question, “To lose something you thought was meant for you...It feels… It feels like a quiet, heavy blanket of darkness has enveloped your soul. It feels like this will last forever. Like the night is never-ending. Like what’s shiny doesn’t shine anymore. Like you have been cheated on, by life itself,” she empathises, looking his way now.

“So you know… then how can you ask this of me? Isn’t it unfair? Josie, I loved her first.”

“And she loved you too, Blythe. She loved you too,” Josie hesitates, “but now she loves someone else.” The water washes over the lilypads. The leaves rustle. All patient, for pain, bloomed amidst them.

“It’s not true, you know?” she chimes, “This didn’t happen to deprive you, Blythe. Bad things just happen for no reason at all. They can befall anyone. It’s just this time, it happened to be you. You weren’t targeted. You weren’t singled out. You are not being punished. This..? This wasn’t orchestrated keeping you in mind. This..? Just happened because bad things happen for no reason at all.”

It seemed to Gilbert, as though she was speaking from experience, the way she was swimming through her sentences like she had said those words before. Who could she have been comforting, Gilbert wonders?

“You have to carry this weight,” she says “and I know it hurts, I know, believe me. It hurts and it hurts because you loved her. It wouldn’t if you didn’t.”

Gilbert listens, so do the lilies.

“Now I can’t ask you to stop loving her, because you won’t. Never doubt the stubbornness of the human heart,” her eyes glisten as she laughs, “but this hurt, Blythe. It will get easier to carry. Not because time heals, but because with time you will learn how to carry it. Eventually, the night will pass. What’s bright will be brighter. What’s shiny, will be shinier. What’s nice, will be nicer.”

They both breathe in the sharp wind.

“Should have stuck with the lilies,” Gilbert comments, lightening the atmosphere.

“Please. Lilies? Frogs don’t even hang around to hear the rest of the sob story.”

“Going to try that the next time around,” he professes.

“You are not going to regret it, Blythe” a frog croaks from behind the bushes, and the two riot.

“Hey, um, do you think,” he asks, “we should skip the whole tea thing?”

“I don’t think we should,” she asserts boldly before winking “but it’s not like what should happen, has to happen.” 

The lilies had folded their petals in for the night, almost shy of staying open any longer. Fireflies blinked their lights above the pristine water, swarming up a softly glowing whirl.

Gilbert marvels at an enraptured Josie and remarks, “I guess good things too, can happen for no reason at all.”


	7. High Spirits

“Yeah, that is disgusting,” Cole says, immediately after he opens the door. Gilbert and Josie stand before him, shying away from the light falling on their faces.

“You two need a shower, like now.” the disgust apparent in his tone, barely masking the concern. Gilbert and Josie had mud splashed shoes, and ruffled hair, “Were you getting drunk or something? Because you can do that in the safety of your room,” he peers at Gilbert’s jacket, “Disgusting. Shower, now.”

“What about the tea thing?” Josie squeaks.

“It’s over.” displeasure tearing through his tone, “Where were you?” his eyes conveyed the betrayal he felt. “We-” Josie manages.

“Shower first.” Cole interjects “You.” he says to Gilbert, “Where’s your luggage?”

“Uh…”

Impatient, Cole continues, “Never mind, just pick something from the closet on the second floor.”

“Which room?” Gilbert’s voice, meek. Were they inebriated? They were, weren’t they?

Cole dismisses, “On the left.”

“Wait, that’s your closet.” Josie detects.

“I am the only one who is awake, and also the only one who is sober, to lend clothes. Alright, now quick, make haste.”

“Make haste” Josie mocks as she moves to the stairs.

She was drunk. She was late and she was drunk. Annoyance bubbled under Cole’s skin but so did empathy. She was like his sister, and she was being incoherent for whatever reason. So he decided to not bring up the betrayal right away, maybe later when she wasn’t trying to pry off her socks whilst standing, he decided. Realising that Gilbert was her accomplice for the night, meant he must have been drunk too. Great. Just, great.

“Okay. The only way I will keep sane is if I have some too.” Cole announces as he enters the kitchen. Time for some Old Fashioned, he thinks.

“Shh, it's illegal in Canada,” Josie whispers, ironically, and then laughs.

“Well that won’t be a problem,” Cole retorts looking at Gilbert in the hallway, flapping his arms like they were wings and hopping about, “given that we’re in Neverland.”

Cole had a long day. He had to corner Jane all on his own. She did not like that. Diana fumed over how the tea didn’t have marigold petals floating in them. Roy and Anne couldn’t stop ogling each other for a second, and he had started second-guessing his whole decision to invite Gilbert after seeing them together. Gilbert, who was standing in front of him, acting like a bird. Was this the bright idea he thought it was? He wondered as he stood in a partially lit hallway with two teenagers who were trying to swallow their tongues, “I cannot believe this.” he mutters to himself.

“Okay, listen up Peter Pan” Cole instructs, “Why don't you fly to my room and get a change of clothes. You are getting mud all over the carpet.” He looks at Josie, “Here,” he pulls her by her hand, “Wendy will show you the room.”

“Josie…” Gilbert comments, “Why is the bad man calling you Wendy?”

“I think he is drunk. Are you drunk, bad man?”

Cole would rather have buried his head under a stone.

“Pot?” he points at the two, “Kettle” he gesticulates in his direction. He wasn’t even drunk, this was not a sound analogy, but the irony had to be called out.

Gilbert’s smile turns to confusion, as he keeps flapping around in the hallway, “Josie, he’s calling us a Pot.”

“Yeah,” Josie giggles, “he is completely out of it,” as she joins Gilbert in his charades, and starts making chirping noises.

Cole was now on the hunt for the stone that, famously, kills two birds with its one stroke. For he had his eyes on two birds he would have liked tackling with a stone, right about then.

So, Cole recounted. Eric showed up at the tea party with absinthe. That was extremely awkward and he avoided him the whole night. Which was the worst idea ever, because Eric proceeded to spend it with Aunt Jo instead, in her room. Talking. All night. Probably about him. Diana went berserk over some petals and threw all the tea out. There was no tea at the tea party, so everyone drank the absinthe Eric had brought. Diana threw up by the piano and no one cared because everyone was too busy dancing. Ruby cried over her pie. That he saw coming, but Anne being in love with Roy? He could not have predicted this. Cole had endured a long day, and somehow there was more of the day to endure. Now, there were two drunk pigeons in his foyer, one of whom has a crush on Anne and is going to be devastated when he learns of Roy, and the other abandoned him to deal with all this on his own. Jane was not happy when Cole approached her with a “this is an intervention” banner.

Cole picked up some throw pillows and tossed them in their direction, hitting his mark, “Stop” the cotton one hits Gilbert, “dancing” the other one misses Josie, “around” this one lands on its target. The pillow kerfuffle was not the brightest idea either. For they picked up what hit them and launched it towards Cole.

“That hurt, Mr Kettle,” said Gilbert frisbeeing the pillows he had gathered in his arms.

“I wanted to throw some too.” Josie scrunches up her face.

“Throw this!” Gilbert hands her a candle stand.

“Woah!” Cole hides behind the sofa, “That could impale me, Mr Future of Medicine!”

“Yeah, he is right.” Josie keeps it down. Cole buries his face in his hands.

“We’re sorry for trying to throw a candle stand at you!” Gilbert shouts as he sprints to the foyer. Probably to resume his practice for the broadway role that will win him academy awards, The Satanic Duck. Cole thought to himself, how all ducks were satanic. Including this one. Especially this one. Defeated he stays slumped behind the cushions.

“What’s all this noise? Cole?" a voice from the top of the stairs calls, "Is that you?”


	8. Love Who You Love, and Be With Them

Eric. Jesus. Eric. He had forgotten all about him.

“Now, now. This is a shit show, innit?” There it is. That all too familiar British disdain. Even if Cole tries he wouldn’t be able to misidentify who that sentence belongs to so he stays crouched behind the sofa, in hopes of Eric missing him.

“Mr Kettle is hiding there!” Gilbert shrieks at Eric and gallops around as he hoots. What was the matter with him? Why did he transform into some nasty bird after downing a pint? More importantly, Cole notes, to never get Gilly boy drunk again.

Eric walks over to stand next to a bent-into-a-ball-of-yarn individual hidden behind a gigantic piece of furniture and mocks, “What do we have here?”

Cole bites his lip to prevent his smart mouth from making a run for it.

Unhappy with the lack of response, Eric tries again, “Why are you hiding, Mr Kettle?”

“In his defence,” Josie pipes in, “I threw a candlestand at him.”

“What?” It sounds like someone had pulled Eric’s throat out.

“Well, almost” Josie sucks on her paper straw and comments, “They should make these bendable.” as she drools over it.

“Mr Kettle” Eric finds the scenario all too amusing and banters, “want to explain what the fuck is going on? Why are two little chicks throwing sharp metal in your direction?” He leans onto a cabinet behind him, elegantly. His style, Cole notices, clashes with his word choice.

“I guess, that’s what the streets of London will do to ya,” he says as he untucks his head.

Eric rubs his upper lip, smugly, “Wonder why they threw metal at you, it’s impossible to imagine.”

“Right?” he stands up, brushing off imaginary soot off his pants.

Eric and Cole turn to face the geese in their living room.

“Do you think, hope is the thing with feathers?” Eric posits.

“Emily Dickenson didn’t have to deal with these two,” Cole reminds him and turns, “Oh god. What is she drinking?” he questions, horrified.

“I think it’s some sort of milkshake.” Eric theorises, based on the colour and texture, “Strawberry, I think”

“Well,” Cole looks at him, as if expecting him to realise the obvious, “we have to stop her.”

“Why?” the nonchalance blaring in Eric’s tone.

“Her insides are going to be on my beloved carpet” Cole contends.

“Too late now, she is spiking it as we speak,” Eric observes.

They watch as Josie, props her straw in the crystal jug filled with absinthe spiked strawberry shake, and then hops onto the marble counter and sips with the most serene smile plastered on her face.

“Wow,” surprise shines in Cole’s voice.

Eric remarks as he pushes his circular frames up his nose, “I know right? Even drunk, she’s a genius.” It makes Cole laugh.

“My carpet is going to be ruined.”

“Hold on,” Eric instructs, gravely, “for hope is the thing with feathers.”

Cole’s attention was now not on the swan singing her death song, or the girl sucking on spiked milkshake on the island counter, but instead on the boy standing next to him. His coffee coloured curls a mess from having a casual affair with his fingers that wouldn’t stop tussling them every chance they got. His porcelain complexion peppered with imperfections. The marble of his eyes, twinkling under the firelight. An air about him, that dared to mix business with pleasure. Cole was so terribly struck by awe, the living room around him had dissolved. He could hear the fire crackle and fizzle, but it was Eric that was lighting him up.

Eric scratches his temple, charmingly, as a smile forms on his face which quickly evolves into disgust, “She just threw up all over the counter.”

Having had his trance broken by pink vomit was not making cole any happier. He hadn’t seen Eric in months and now that he finally had the chance, this happens? Cole rests his neck at the back oh his hand which inspires Eric to say, “I have an idea.”

*

The four of them were sat on the terrace linoleum, covered in white quilts, warm under Van Gogh’s starry night. Gilbert was scooping pieces of peach from his mango yoghurt parfait.

“Food. That was your brilliant idea?” Cole flirts.

“Worked, didn’t it?” Eric shoots him a grin.

Josie was asleep on the living room pillows that Eric had used to bribe the drunk teens to the terrace, where there was no candlestand they could wield as a weapon and plenty of fresh air to sober them up.

“So why was this knucklehead ca-cawing on the rug when I found him?” Eric points at Gilbert in an attempt to start up a dialogue.

“No idea,” Cole cuts to the chase, “What brings you here?”

“Just taking you up on your invite,” he smiles.

Cole runs a hand through his hair, as the wind caresses him unabashedly.

“Should I have not?” Trepidation, vivid in Eric’s manner.

“Hmm?” Cole was inattentive. All his effort was going into, actively, not kissing Eric. He fidgets with his skin, to distract himself, more so to keep his disobedient fingers occupied. He could not trust himself.

“You avoided me all evening,” Eric exacts, unforgivingly. His shoulders pull back, stiffly.

“Not on purpose” Cole responds, “I am sorry if-”

“Don’t,” he interrupts. Eric wasn’t a fan of courteous apologies, “Besides, Josephine keeps good company.”

Cole apprehensively diverts, “Did you tell her about..?” and takes a swig of the Old Fashioned in his hand. The ice tinkles against the glass, as he keeps it beside him.

Eric breaks into a smile, “My mums? Yeah.” He delightedly continues, “She lost her fucking mind. Her look? ‘twas precious.”

“I bet.” Short and sweet, nothing could go wrong. Cole could not mess it up if he just never utters more than a sentence at a time.

“I mean, when I told her I was raised by a fleet of prostitutes on the back alleys and speakeasies of London, she was...” Eric lays down, pulling the cover over his shoulder, “ecstatic?”

“Why do you think?” One sentence. Cole was doing swimmingly.

“I think,” Eric continues, “She was comforted, in some manner.”

“Comforted?” A single word sentence, he was doing well. Cole did not want to royally muck everything up. He was taking every caution in the bag.

“Yeah, I felt her ease up” Eric recalls

“Sounds like her” Cole smiles

“People don’t ease up when I tell them about my mums,” Eric reveals.

“Well, my mum does.” boasts Cole.

The wind cools, the stars breathe. Gilbert spoons his yoghurt, as he stares at the sky and its inky darkness floating above them, unblinkingly. Josie sleeps on.

“She didn’t think of mum as fallen,” Eric remarks all of a sudden. It takes Cole by surprise.

“Huh?”

“Prostitutes. Fallen women? Ring any bells?”

Cole is alarmed by his privilege. He asks, wrapping his corduroy vest tightly around him, “What happened?”

“Nothing. Mum wanted to be rich.” Eric chuckles at his joke and continues, “Prostitution is the highest paying job for women, and it’s legal in the UK, so.”

“She wanted to pay her bills on her own, a smart woman,” Gilbert says with a mouthful.

“Eat your yoghurt boy-yo” Eric comments to subdue what he was feeling. A strange sense of belonging. To a yoghurt loving boy, a pink-puke party pooper, and someone who ignored him at tea.

“I love mangoes,” Gilbert adds, unprompted.

“Aunt Jo loved Gertrude” Cole pretends to have not heard Gilbert.

“As much as I love this mango?” Gilbert thrusts the forkful of mango in Cole’s face.

“She was married to Gertrude, Gilbert. Are you married to your mango?”

“No need to rub it in,” Gilbert mumbles, “I’d marry this mango if I could.”

“He’s still loaded, isn’t he?”

“Like a gun,” Eric says folding his arms behind his head, “Josephine and Gertrude then.”

“Mh hmm… maybe she understands that a patriarchal society will grab any chance it has to outcast women.”

“Even for love,” Eric states bitterly.

“Even for love,” Cole repeats. He looks at Gilbert who was wearing the floral shirt that he had lent him, finishing off the last bit of his snack.

Eric queries, “What about boys?”

“Huh?” Cole did not expect that. A rush overcame him. Was he going to say what he thought he was going to say?

“What happens when a boy,” Eric teasingly takes Cole’s hand in his, “likes another boy?” What should they do then?”

Cole, hot beyond belief, blames the Old Fashioned he had been sipping for the impromptu courage that overcomes him. He laces his fingers with Eric’s, “Love who they love and, be with them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...! Say hello, to Eric. My sweet little London boy, who will unhesitatingly takedown hecklers and will chat up sailors, more smoothly than a siren.
> 
> I made this one long. Hope it's something you enjoyed. Let me know if you guys like it shorter. Thank you for reading, and for engaging with my work. The kudos and comments you leave make my day. So thank you for those. I'd love to hear what you think.  
> Stay tuned for the next!
> 
> Much love x


	9. What A Lucky Man

“Gilbert?” Anne stands in the kitchen with a jug of water in her hand, stupefied.

“Anne” his heart was in his mouth. He gapes as though he'd caught a glimpse of an archangel.

The sunlight played with the songbirds outside, who were completely unaware of the chaos brewing within that room.

Anne's clasp over the steel handle tenses. Gilbert Blythe, in flesh, standing before her in Cole's floral shirt. She became overwhelmingly conscious of her beige nightgown, that was crinkled from having been ruffled during a good night's sleep.

“When…” she trails, her heart pacing as though it just came to life.

“Last night, I think” Gilbert smiles, taking the jug from her, “Although, I don’t remember much.” He decides to face the sink and gaze out of the windows, out into the garden. He could not look at her, it was just too painful.

She was still trying to land on her feet from when the Earth shifted from below her, “It’s good to see you,” she manages to croak out. She wonders if she meant it.

“And you,” Gilbert extends the courtesy right back and pours himself a glass. 

His lungs were collapsing within his chest as if her presence was sucking all the air out. The window with its laundry breeze was his only respite. This was the first time he was seeing her since that rainy day in July. The day he watched her kiss the love of her life. Who, he reminds himself, was upstairs, asleep. Who, he is not lucky enough to be. A friendly little reminder, to always keep in mind, how he wasn’t lucky enough to be her kiss in the rain.

Anne was not prepared to have a relic from the past be hurled at her first thing in the morning. When he hadn’t shown up the night before she chalked it up to some last-minute ditch trick he must have pulled. Lord knows he’s good at that. However, now that she had him in the same room as her, it was bringing up all kinds of emotions she was certain she had discarded. 

There was a dull ache pulsating in her chest and to evade the same she asks, “How’s Winnie?”

Winifred Rose, his wife. The love of his life. A familiar pang rings through her. He was married. Gilbert Blythe was married. She needed to remember that. She was doing herself a favour.

He barely hears her, over the vein thrashing against his skull. He had too much to drink the night before; he takes a sip, “Good," his tone feigns interest, "Winnie is good,” 

Was Winnie good? He had no idea. Honestly, he hadn’t thought of her until Anne brought it up. These were the first couple of minutes of the day and he was already worn out. His head was so heavy that it was hard to keep it on his shoulders. But what was making it all the more unbearable was that he could not tell her. He could not tell her anything about, anything. Diana had revealed to him over the phone that Anne didn’t know that he wasn’t married. That she never received his letter. That he liked her.

“How’s Paris? Everything you dreamed it would be?” she questions. Her voice melts like snow under the summer heat.

Josie was right. He could not tell her. Roy’s a catch, and if Anne still had feelings for him would her first question revolve around Winnie and the second around Paris?

So he downs his glass of water and, “Roy, huh, what a nice guy.” He crosses his arms and turns to face her, a smile playing on his lips. He could act. He could act like he enjoyed the idea of Anne and Roy together, even though it set his stomach on fire.

The ceiling weighs down on Anne, as though she were underwater. Ropes of ivy tighten around her throat, “Yeah.” He knew about Roy, and of course. Of course, his first question wasn’t directed at her. She had to stop deluding herself, it was getting ridiculous. There exists a Winifred...Blythe. Not Rose. Blythe.

“Did you meet him?” she enquiries, speaking about Roy was easier than speaking about Winnie.

“I haven’t been that lucky,”

“Please,” she scoffs, unable to bear his glib humility any longer, “You live in Paris, with your lovely wife. You’ve been plenty lucky,”

“What can I say,” his heart bleeds, and his lips lie, “I’m a lucky man”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, two chapters in two days! If there is anyone who has been getting lucky, it's yall ;)  
> Finally, Anne and Gilbert meet. Thoughts?


	10. The Puppet Master

Eric hung over the beam, a lit cigar between his fingers, “Blythe,” he nods at the guy who joins him on the terrace. Quietly they smoke.

“When did you pick up the habit?” Gilbert asks, trying to overcome the silence between them.

Eric darts the most unwelcoming look his direction.

“Why don’t I go first?” Gilbert continues. He wanted to bond, “I was working on this ship en route to Trinidad, and when the coal shovelers cut for a break, some would sneak off to the deck for a quick drag.” He waits for Eric to react, so he ends up waiting for a while.

“Blythe,” Eric finally says, “allow me to tell you a story” derision ripe in his words.

“I am all ears” Gilbert plays ball.

“This one’s about a wooden dolly,” Eric plays with his cig suggestively, “Pinnochio. Heard of him?”

He wasn’t taking this seriously enough to Gilbert’s chagrin, “Yes”

“So Pinnochio was a little liar, you see?” Eric peers into Gilbert’s eyes accusingly, “and every time he lied, his nose grew a little longer.”

“Okay, where are you going with this” the salt of indignation rubbing against his wounds, perks Gilbert off the railing, he stands in defiance to an otherwise relaxed Eric, who doesn’t even twitch a muscle.

“Stop lying to Anne.”

Gilbert haughtily responds, “I am not lying to her”

“Oh, so you’re married then?” Eric challenges, cooly.

“Yes,” blinded by hubris, he defends.

“Where’s your wedding ring?” Eric’s gaze brushes over his fingers.

“Doctors prefer not wearing them, how would you like to have one left in your colon?”

More lies, but Eric wasn’t having any of it, “Why did you rescind the wedding invites?”

“She wanted a private wedding.”

“With no family or friends?” he counters, “because none of them witnessed the wedding, Blythe.”

Gilbert sucks on his cigarette, which was no match for Eric’s cigar, “Yes.”

He sizes Gilbert and scoffs, “Liar”

“And on what basis did you deduce that?” he says his pride ripping through his every word.

“You have a tell,” Eric smirks, “your nose just grew a little, Pinnochio.” he points at Gilbert’s features to exaggerate his point.

“See-”

“Zip it.” Eric thunders, “I don’t fucking care about your excuses. Just know this, Anne is smart and you won’t get away with your lies. It’s a matter of time before she finds out.”

Defeated, but unwilling to show so, Gilbert crushes his cigarette unflinchingly, “She doesn’t have to know what will hurt her unnecessarily.”

“Your problem is, Blythe” Eric looks up at the floating clouds, “you don’t just lie to us. You lie to yourself.”

“She and Roy are going strong,” Gilbert vents.

“If they’re going strong, then you confessing your feelings won’t make a dent Pinnochio.” Eric goes on, “Man, she is studying to be a detective. Do you think this is something you want her to learn from someone who isn’t you?”

“If that happens,” Gilbert says, “I am going to wish I was a wooden dolly” and laughs.

“No,” Eric smilingly adds, “You’re gonna wish you were married to the mango from last night.”

They were joshing, but it was an audacious idea. To dare to tell Anne the truth. Gilberts wonders if wooden hearts were harder to break than human ones.


	11. Chrysanthemums and Cheap Wine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to my friend Frida. Happy birthday, love!

“Is this your bloody schoolyard? Get off my lawn!” barks the neighbour across. Anne scurries, hand in Roy’s, out of his sight. 

“If I ever see the two of you again,” the old man now very far behind but still yelling, “I swear to God, I will kill you.” 

They both could practically hear him waving his cane in the quiet afternoon wind, as they disappeared onto the next street, “Yes run. Run away!” his voice growing smaller with every sprint.

The two find a red-bricked wall to take refuge against, thankful for the shade, and ultimately safety from Mr Murphy's wrath.

“That was a close call,” Roy huffs, his hands on his knees, panting like a labrador. 

“Close?” Anne laughs, with her back against the wall. Was he joking? Had Mr Murphy caught up to them they were sure to be dead meat.

“He didn’t catch us,” Roy defends with a familiar nonchalance he was popularly accustomed to.

“We are never doing this again,” Anne announces between fits of uncontrollable giggles. She knows because she tried to control them.

“Absolutely. But 'twas very fun,” he remarks. 

She breathes in a lungful, “Fun yeah, that it was but never again." She heaves.

“I am tired, from all this,” Roy waves, as he proposes, barely catching his breath, “To the beach?” 

That's what they did. Every day, after having questioned all the suspects, and having bothered Mr Murphy, they would head off to the beach and kickback. It's a tradition they had formed over the last couple of weeks. 

Anne offers him her hand, “To the beach”

It is a peaceful afternoon, the garden insects buzz, the sunshine warms their ears, and the sky is a big beautiful blue. It's the perfect day. Anne recollects all those times she hid behind mattresses as the dorm girls hunted for her, reciting how she was unloved, unworthy. At that moment, in the sun, on the cul de sac, she was anything but. She had been preparing a pilot report on something she had been long suspecting in the neighbourhood, and the case finally seems to have some relevance to reality. It comforts her to know that what had started out as a stretch, now was a possibility. Somebody had been laundering money through onyx marble trade-offs, and so naturally she had to find out who was stirring up such mischief. Luckily, she had a brilliant investigative journalist who had her back. Roy. His creamy laugh, his constant love, his hand in her’s. Not even in her wildest imaginations could she have dreamt this up. Mint green cabbage butterflies let themselves be known as they flutter around the white and yellow chrysanthemums lining the street. They walk on for a couple of minutes, before they hear the lulling sound of the ocean.

Seagulls fly in pairs, the sea the colour of the sky, the rhythmic heart of the waves breaking against the beach. The town stood still, forgotten. They took off their shoes, so they could slip their toes into the white sand. Roy unearths the chest they had hidden behind piles of sandy grain, and props open the lid, “Here’s your glass.” He says as he hands it to her and then goes on to pour some port wine into the one in her hand and the one in his.

“Generous,” Anne delights, as hers is filled to the top.

“For you?” He smirks, “Always.” Flirting. Right. He was always flirting when they were alone. Which made her want him more. 

“Ah-ha, very funny,” she comments and then saunters toward the shore. She did not trust herself standing in his proximity a minute longer. He was an excellent smooth talker and was a better conversationalist when his fingers were doing the talking, but she could not afford the distraction. Not now. She needed to flip through the file she had brought along and Roy and his antics, as much she wanted it to not, had to wait. 

Anne sits cross-legged on the beach floor, a small distance away from the foam circles left behind by the tide, papers in one hand and wine in another. She was reviewing the case that they had built so far, which was precisely just one thing. Insufficient. Roy gently lays his head on her lap and vows to keep the silence for he knows how much she values it. 

Anne exhales complainingly, her attention trained on the scratchy notes she had scribbled. She pays no mind to the lilac waves or the translucent seashells encrusting the shore. The mid-autumn breeze is calming, but Roy is not much calmed by it. His fingers, restlessly fidget with the rim of his glass, "Want to go over the case with me, once again?"

"No, it's okay, sip your wine," she says distractedly. 

"I could be of help, who knows. Maybe saying it out loud might give us a lead." Roy pushes. He simply wanted to ease her nervousness. If not, at the very least, share it. 

"Hmm.." she rubs her eyebrows, unconvinced, and reads on. 

"When you were at the farmer's market, you saw...?" Roy prompts, hoping she'd respond.

"Something was off," Anne was still not fully listening and was still adamantly handling it all on her own.

"Yes, something was off with the marble polishers next door. What did you see?"

Anne puts her papers away and uses her wine glass as a paperweight. This could be a disaster if either of them recklessly flopped their arms around and spilt all the wine on her findings. She decides, that even then they'd be destroying nothing worth anything. So she sticks with her original move, "The money was in an envelope, it had the royal insignia on it."

"Okay, and what about that threw you off?"

"The mailman," Anne answers, quietly. 

"What was so weird about the mailman handing out an envelope?" Roy asks, to draw the details out of her. 

"He doesn't work at the post office. I know all of the postmen, Roy!"

"Because of your correspondence in Toronto?"

"Exactly! You don't send and receive hundreds of letters without making acquaintance with the six-membered delivery team of Charlottetown"

"What if it was the Royal Guard? You said the envelope had their insignia." 

"I thought the same thing, so I checked in. It wasn't one of them either."

"Okay. That is weird. Only because of the royal stamp. It doesn't add up."

"Yeah, but you know. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe I am just looking too into it, with all the investigative stuff we've been doing." Anne takes a sip from Roy's glass, she couldn't risk lifting her's off the paper stack, "Besides I don't know if I can trust my gut."

He sits up, "Hey. It is our job to notice what doesn't add up and follow through. You never know where you'll find a story." Effortlessly retrieving the crystal cup from her grasp and pressing it to his lips, he says, "Besides it's not about whether you can trust your gut, it's about whether you will." 

"That makes no sense," Anne mocks, reaching for the cup in his hands. 

He playfully raises it beyond her reach, "No. It makes perfect sense. Do you believe in this story?"

"I am very inexperienced!" she exclaims, half-jokingly, half-seriously. Seagulls, guffaw. 

"And yet you noticed what someone else could have easily missed. Give yourself some credit Cuthbert." He takes a swig of the alcohol, "Listen. It's hard for women in this field. Heck, in any field. Enough men are going to invalidate your argument, and more are going to take the credit that belongs to you. You have got to have your back." He presents her with the cup and with the softest voice whispers, "So, I'll ask again. Do you believe in this story?"

She tactfully snatches the wine glass from him, "I do," and drinks its last.

"Then that's all you need" he smiles, eyes sparkling. His stomach blushes pink. Was it the wine? Was it the thrill of the case? or... Was it her? 

Turns out, Anne wasn't the only one following her gut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and thus it begins...!


	12. Two Players, One Game

Washed up apothecary bottles with yellowing labels, grew rosemary leaves on their dusty corners on her shelf top. Nearly empty perfume bottles sat ghost-like beside them. The kerosene lamp burning low on the ink spilt papers strewn across the table looked on with patience. The moonless night was young but most of the wax had dripped into a pool. A disgruntled Anne paces the room as piles of hardbound books littering the room paint a striking contrast. 

Josephine Barry sips her English tea and grazes her thumb against the golden teacup handle before placing it back on the saucer, "Don't worry dear, I'm sure we'll find a way."

A worried Anne rubs her temple distractedly, "I really don't know if we can pull this off, Aunt Jo."

"All you need is an invite to the Prince's Gala, and I can furnish you with those," Mrs Barry, says as she places the teacup and its saucer on the side table before the furry tabby cat walks on to her lap, "Mr Whiskers agrees, doesn't he?" she says as she pets the purring cat. 

Prince Edward's Autumnal Equinox Gala. It was their opportunity to fraternize with him and snoop around for everything out of the ordinary. Everything out of place. Anything, out of place. The Prince was a beloved man for his humility but wasn't shy of showcasing obscene celebrations to a select few. Anne pictures him sitting on a velvet throne bejewelled with the blood crystals. The final fate of anyone who dared to go against him. The visual only adds to her anxiety. 

"It's an ambitious plan, Aunt Jo."

"You're an ambitious girl, Anne." 

A knock on the door makes both of them turn.

"May I?" peeks in a sweet face. Gilbert. 

Aunt Jo spares a welcoming glance, "I was just leaving. Hurry Mr Whiskers." she smiles at the cat on her lap and then looks up, "Get the cup when you're done, yes?" 

Anne nods a response. What business did Gilbert have with her? 

Aunt Jo excuses herself, tucking in the ginger ball of fur in her arms.

"Like what you've done with the place," he comments, walking in. 

Anne breathes in sharply, and eggs him with silence, prompting him to get on with it already. Gilbert stays oblivious to this.

For a moment, they both feel the quiet in the room settle to the floor. The fire flickers its last. A slow wind sneaking in through the gap in the window left ajar. Soft brass glints in the lamplight. He wanted to say something, and it had made its way into his throat when-

"Hey," chimes in another voice from the hallway, "heard we got the invite, congra-" Roy dons a quizzical smile as he stands at the doorway as eyes meet those of a stranger. 

Gilbert gulps down his words. 

Roy walks toward him, grinning now, "Hi, I don't believe we've met," he extends his arm for Gilbert to take, "I'm Roy,"

"Roy Gardener." Gilbert cuts him off swiftly. Bitterness silver-lines his tone, "I know who you are." Abruptly aware of how that must have sounded, with pretend civility he takes the extension of politeness and shakes Roy's hand. It's quick but firm. Gilbert notes that Roy is sure of himself and has already caught on to Gilbert's distaste for him. Still, he is confident. The way he stands, the glimmer in his eyes. It only boils the poison soup brewing in Gilbert's belly. 

Roy quizzes, wearing a faux simper, "Have we met before?" He was better at this than Gilbert was, evidently. Before Gilbert could make a smart quip, Roy predicts, "Gilbert Blythe, isn't it?" as he smirks. 

How did he know? Did Anne bring him up? Enough for a stranger to identify him with just a hello? Gilbert brushes it off. It was a prime moment. His response mattered. It would give away his vulnerability. So he chooses to not ask. As if he was unimpressed by Roy's deduction. 

He crosses his arms, with an air of finality, "Pleased to finally meet you." he cocks his head in Anne's direction as they maintain their locked trance, "She talks very highly of you." suddenly his eyes peer into something darker than the night outside. 

Roy smiles, undeterred by the darkness "Please. The pleasure is mine." he replies, smugness overtaking his demeanour. 

"Actually," Gilbert already tired of the charade, "could I get the room?" He glances over at Anne, "There's something I need to discuss"

"Just a minute," Roy turns to face Anne, "I came over to ask if you had any friends who fancied bees, by any chance? You know maybe someone who keeps 'em? " 

"I keep bees" Gilbert butts in, decisively. Scratching his itch to get involved and to fasten up this process. Then wondering if it was a smart idea to volunteer for some activity proposed by Anne's "suitor", without any prior knowledge. 

"Anne," Roy pleads her with his eyes, "he could be useful" he continues, "Prince Edward, cannot shut up about bees and pollination and the like, you know how he is." Roy continues, "Gilbert can be instrumental for our plan," his tone solemn. His distaste for Gilbert taking a backseat. This, Prince Edward nonsense seemed to be a priority. 

Anne stands, unmoved, wondering, "I don't know Roy," 

"Sweetheart," Roy moves toward her. Seductively? Gilbert doesn't want to admit it. Roy urges, caressing her arm, "I think it'll be good... think about it maybe?" 

"Okay," she breathes out, smiling up at Roy, "Okay, it's a good idea."

Gilbert looks away. He should have looked away the moment Roy reached for her, and now he can't unsee this. Her smiling up at him, like he is the night sky, was going to make what he was about to do so much harder than it needed to be. 

"If Gilbert doesn't mind that is," Roy asks, cheekily breaking Gilbert's inattention. He sighs. If it helps Anne out, he'd do it. Even if that meant tolerating Roy. "I'm in," immediately struck by a query he proceeds, "But what is this about? What for? What plan?"

Roy shines brightly at him, "Too late, brother. You're locked in." and winks. 

Gilbert's annoyance well hidden behind his beige vest, he hangs his head over crossed arms, defeated. Whatever to get this man out of the room. 

Roy plants a feathery kiss on her cheek, and says to Gilbert, "The room's yours."

A weight propels Gilbert's heart to his stomach. He finds that the room was his but not the girl standing within it.


	13. Couples that Cook Together...

"Okay, now that we have the room to ourselves," Gilbert begins but is interrupted by Anne.

"I've to make dinner," she says tiredly, looking at the hands on the clock placed on her desk.

"Can't someone else..." Gilbert suggests, inching cautiously to his point, "make dinner?" and pausing again as if he still had a sentence to complete, to delay her response. She does not take the bait. 

"Whatever point you have to make, you can make it in the kitchen." She arranges the scattered papers into organised piles and starts putting them back into the cabinets

"You sure no one else can pitch in for tonight?" he prays that the paper-putting-away sitch would distract her from his annoying insistence.

"Oh let's see," Anne moves swiftly towards the door to turn the knob and walks out the room, Gilbert follows. "Eric and Cole are down by the canal because that's what they do on Saturday evenings." She talks back to the stairwell walls as they circuit down the spire, Gilbert quietly following her stead. "Josie's poring through her textbooks. Tillie's busy fashioning our dresses for the Gala" Two flights down, the kitchen wasn't far, or so Gilbert hoped. "Diana and Aunt Jo are looking over the account books, so they cannot be troubled. Jane can't cook to save her life." She counts on her fingers, busy with mental math "Ruby is with Moody. He has been baking her all kinds of sweets this past week. Such a show-off." She scoffs, but one can hear her smile. Gilbert could bet that Anne is happy with Ruby and Moody's courtship. Ground floor. Thank God. She doesn't miss a beat and waltzes right into the kitchen and Gilbert feels that she'd cool off if he stood away.

Feeling his absence she looks back, "What are you doing?" she snaps, "Come here. I don't have time to babysit you."

"Yes, ma'am," Gilbert says alarmed. There's no pleasing her today. 

She pays no mind to his playful taunt, and continues, "So that leaves, Roy, you and I. You're our guest, so technically we shouldn't be asking you to raise a finger during your stay but the thing is," there is this naughtiness in her voice, a glint one couldn't miss. Surely Gilbert couldn't, "You just chased Roy away, who was going to help me with all this." She gestures around the kitchen with a wooden ladle, "so now you are going to be the one to help me. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am. Understood. " he smiles. They were back, catfighting. Just like from before. Relaxing into the mood, Gilbert asks, "What do you need from me?" 

"The potatoes have already been boiled, so fetch me the balsamic vinegar." She points at the wine coloured bottle kept in the shade, "Oh and while you're at it, also get the salt."

"Where's the salt?"

She stares up, from tying her apron, "Right in front of you." 

"Where?"

"In." Amusement ripe in her tone, "front of you." 

"No, it's not here." he turns to face her.

"The tiny white bottle with the two holes on the lid. Have you never seen the salt shaker?" she sneers.

This is going to be fun, Gilbert thought, leaning on to the counter. 

"I do not want you slacking off. This is important business." 

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Do not yes ma'am me. Now, hand me the salt." she stretches out her hand.

He does, gladly. She lifts the lid off the boiled potatoes and drains the excess water into a bowl, "for the plants" she whispers as she stores the bowl away. 

"So, what do you want from me?" Gilbert cocks an eyebrow, flirting now. 

Her tone turning playful, "Ever handled a knife, Doctor?" Maybe she could enjoy this.

Gilbert's eyes alit with a familiar glint, "I chopped a bunch of carrots in my day," 

Carrots. Funny. He was being funny. She shakes her head lightly, "Nevermind, you're on salt duty."

Befuddled he goes, "Umm... I've to watch the salt?"

"I don't know Gilbert, you tell me, you're the one on salt duty," she smirks.

Gilbert expertly maneuvres the ladle from her hand, "Hey, you're the one who invented the position," laughing now, hiding behind the island counter. Safe, beyond her reach. Even though she stood right across, he wasn't much afraid. She was smaller than he was. This was going to be easy. 

"Hand it back!" she thunders, non-threateningly. 

"I don't know, I think I'll keep it," he meanders coyly. "Besides, anger looks cute on you." 

She crosses her arms, huffing "Gilbert Blythe," she stretches her palms out, "give it back," and stares right into his eyes, "now." 

"Not so easily," he smirks victoriously, "what will you give me in return?"

Adamant, Anne plays along, her soft features moulding into seductive tones, she inches closer, bending over the kitchen island, "Well, depends. What do you want?" 

Entranced by her sultry voice, his grasp on the ladle laxes. Gilbert notices that her eyes were not honey hazel, but a deep shade of jade green. Up close, they were even more mesmerizing than he could have anticipated. It was like peering into the soul of an evergreen forest. His jaw slackens, and for a moment he is too taken by her to notice her fingers curl around the wooden spoon and snatch it away with expertise. 

She winks. It breaks the spell. "Gotchya" 

Gilbert clears his throat, Anne now all too aware of the lack of space between them, pulls away. Her demeanour crumbling. "Salt duty. That's all you get." She looks at a deflated Gilbert and her heart melts into her chest, "Alright okay, no salt duty."

It perks him right up, blooming like a flower he asks, "What do you need of me?"

She chops a handful of cilantro, "Prep the potatoes in a platter, a pinch of salt, a half-cup of the vinegar." 

Gilbert dutifully follows her instructions to the t. She chops away. A sense of calm settles over the two of them. Grasshoppers chirp out on a midnight blue lawn. A cold wisp of wind floats in. Even the silence they share was comfortable. The two of them. In their kitchen. Cooking dinner. It brings a small smile on her face. 

She was so sure that she was done with Gilbert Blythe. That she'd never see him again. That he was gone for good. That she would spend the rest of her life, and his face would never show up in it ever again. Yet, here he was. As if none of that was real, wearing mittens, flecks of flour smearing his cheek, giggling as he placed the dish she handed him into the glowing oven. 

"How long?" he asks, mid-laugh. They had been reminiscing how Moody always lost out on their spelling competitions, always, unfailingly. And how it would always come down to the two of them. Gilbert and Anne. 

"Forty minutes," she responds, smiling back. He turns the dial to forty.c

Oh, how it always comes down to the two of them.


	14. Make Belief

Laughter and flour everywhere. Blue eyes trailing soft fire curls. Quiet heels leaping on woollen rugs. The wind making things messier. The time flowing slower. The dinner cooks in the oven while these two map their way around the Josephine household. Forty minutes to kill, and they decided to kill each other instead. Well, if you could kill someone by smothering them with flour. Then, yes. They were out for each other’s lives.

“You’re not going to get away from me!” A flour besmirched Gilbert hollers as he runs after the girl in flight. 

Breathlessly, with a pan in hand Anne laughs. She halts and her hand rests on the island counter, shielding herself with the cooking utensil she taunts “You can’t catch me.” 

Gilbert’s eyebrows quizzically convey his disagreement. A smirk slithers onto his lips, “I don’t have to.”

“You can’t. Then why even bother?” Anne remarks, her voice light and defiant. Her pan in front of her face. 

POOF.

A puff of flour lands on her. Surprised by how on Earth he managed to get her, Anne’s mouth hangs agape. Smug now, Gilbert shrugs his shoulders, bathing in hubris, “I’m sorry. What were you saying?” He dusts the flour off of his fingers and wryly adds “I couldn’t hear you over all that flour.”

Anne’s shoulder blades backwards. “Cocky is not a good colour on you.”

“Flour” he pauses, “is not a good colour on you” he bites back. 

Anne purses her lips and starts dusting the white flecks off of her skin when a sudden idea prompts her to smile “It’s funny you say that.” 

POOF.

A fistful bombards his jacket. He exclaims, “This was Bash’s!”

“Serves you right.” Anne pompously teases, crossing her arms.

“Who’s getting cocky now?” He resorts to sarcastic rhetoric and then warns “Arrogance. It’s dangerous,” he reaches for something, “It makes you careless.” 

WOOSH. 

The flour mountain that had been resting on the kitchen island had just been ejected in Anne’s direction. What had happened was, Gilbert and Anne were bored. So they decided to search for the cookie jar Moody hides away for Ruby. They had been busy looking through the cabinets when Gilbert found a silver tin. Traditionally the ideal cookie hiding place. But all it held was flour. Anne all giddy from having found “cookies” made a dash for the tin in Gilbert’s hold and he moved too quickly and—the contents of the tin, sprayed like confetti before spilling all over the kitchen counter, and also over Anne. She looked as if she was ready to smack him on the head and break another slate. She was convinced it was an intentional attack and thus ended up chucking a handful of flour from the floor upon him. It was all downhill from there. 

The island was swimming in flour and a wave of it had just hit Anne, who suddenly retreated away. That was unlike her. She never backs away. Never.

“What's wrong?” All the competitive zing lost from his tone, Gilbert asks. She doesn’t answer. Her closed eyes crinkle and fold, as if in anguish. Her knuckles rub against her eyelids as she sways her hair away. The flour was in her eyes. His demeanour is stripped down to its core, watching her vulnerable disarms him.

Unable to keep his distance, Gilbert moves toward her, “Wait, let me…” he suggests and waits for her permission. She stops massaging them with her fingers, and nods. 

He smiles, softly. Her eyes were closed, so she couldn’t see him seeing her. So he drank her in. The same resilient spirit, the same air of stubbornness, the same red hair falling over her shoulders. To him she looked ethereal, even when coated in wheat dust, hair splayed all over. 

He places his thumb under her brow pulling her eyelid open, gently. She wriggles and fights it.

“Hey!” Gilbert alerts her and places his other hand over hers. “Trust me.” 

Her fingers grasp onto his. Her face flinches away. He begs her, “Anne, trust in me”

The wriggling and the struggling stops. He takes that she has trusted him.

He raises her eyelid like curtains at a theatre. Her eyes weren’t red but were watering. Her pupil darts to the other corner of the room. He blows on the snow clung to her lashes. His attention trained, his fingers moving expertly. With circular motions of his right thumb and his left, holding her eyelid tenderly in place, he hopes to have moved the spec of flour out her eye. He says, “Check now” and withdraws his hands, only to rest them on her cheeks, patiently waiting for her judgement. 

She blinks. Once. Twice. Thrice. On the next attempt, she finds the irritant gone. 

“You look like you were snowed upon” she teases as her eyes scan his. 

He smiles, relieved. His thumb swipes her flour-covered cheek, “Great, so you can still see,” he taunts.

A tide of red surges from her stomach and burns her cheeks into a blush as a response to his touch. All of a sudden, all too conscious.

Taking some liberty his thumb strays as it wipes the side of her face, and soon it was busy dusting the flour off of the soft bulge of her ear lobe. Distracted now from the original purpose of the swiping, he can’t ignore the sudden spark under his skin. Neither can she. He wants to stop, but cannot. He looks at her, her expression as if urging him to wipe it all off, afraid of making the wrong move he chooses not to. He goes against his every instinct and instead tucks a stray strand, behind her ear.

They both knew. They stood too close for friends. So close. 

Too close. 

The oven beeps. 

He gulps. She waits. 

A second passes. Then another. Nobody says a word. His hand was still cupped around hers. Her breath was still falling on his neck. Their eyes linger on each other's. Nobody moves. 

The oven beeps. 

Anne withdraws. He doesn’t let go. 

“Anne.” 

She doesn’t leave. 

“It was hard not to kiss you.” His eyes, clearly reflecting the restraint.

The oven beeps.

Her pupils widen. Her heart beats in her ear. Gilbert Blythe was having a hard time not kissing her. An inappropriate blush flowers a garden around her nose. Him admitting that he desired it too, all the more made her want to place her hands around his neck and pull him into her.

Nobody moves. The tension between them, palpable now. Heartbeat pulsating right under their skin. Heat surrounding them like a halo. His gaze hovers over her lips, and then he forces them to look elsewhere. 

The oven beeps.

Frustrated, finally, she chastises, “I am taken,” she reminds, bitterly, “and you are married.” 

“I am not.” He breathes out, almost immediately and steps away. Breaking the halo. Cold and distant, out of the blue. “The next time this happens, I don’t know if we’ll be able to stop it” And then, corrects himself, “I know, I certainly won’t.” 

The oven beeps.


	15. The End and The Beginning

The evening’s midnight blue was shrouded over by thunderous clouds while Anne’s insides steeped like tea reaching a boil.

“Wait,” she instructs Gilbert, her voice disembodied from herself, unaware of what it’s trying to achieve by stopping him. 

He stops. He hopes that she will forget what he’d said. 

_The next time this happens, I don’t know if we’ll be able to stop it. I know, I certainly won’t._

Gilbert trains his eyes on her unreadable expression and with a faltering gaze, decides to just wait for her to respond.

She dusts some of that flour off her apron as she sighs heavily. As though burdened by her reality, “You’re unmarried, then?” She asserts, her eyes scrunched up, unable to meet his. 

“Yes” 

“Okay.” She nods and wishes that was all she had to say, only it was not and the words tumbled out of her mouth like a waterfall, “And? When were you planning on telling me?” 

Gilbert, answerless, bows his head in defeat.

Her heart swells and rips, the moon dips into the lake of her heart spilling pools of water from her eyes. 

She swipes the flours from her palms by rubbing them against each other. “That’s just wonderful”

“Anne,” he finally mutters. 

“Things are-” she cuts him off, with deep lack of inhibition, “good with Roy.”

Her words cut harsher than she had planned, but Gilbert stands still as though he’d deserved it.

“I noticed,” he utters, his voice rumbly and low. It was his turn to evade her line of sight. As if speaking to the flower spackled walls or the victorian armoire on the left could absolve him.

Anne breaks this nonsensical evasion and pierces her eyes right through his, “Why didn’t you tell me before?” 

His irises catch on hers as a match catches on fire. 

“I tried. I even,” he smiles thinking of the peonies and loses the grin recalling what became of them, “doesn’t matter now, does it?”

She stares at him in bewildering disagreement. 

So he relents, “I came to Queens, and uh, you seemed occupied so… I, uh” he trails wondering when his misery was tangible, wondering if she could see his pain in the way he was breathing, “I figured you and Roy were... getting along? and I didn’t--couldn’t-- come in the way of that. Not in a million years.” 

“What?” confusion clouded her eyes, “Gilbert, that was probably the first time Roy and I-!” she forces her eyes shut from saying things she shouldn't, “Doesn’t matter now.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” he echoed, slotting his hands into his pockets, not fully believing the words.

In that kitchen, both stood, unwilling to reveal their hearts. 

So much was left unsaid. 

Gilbert took a sharp painful breath “Guess I should get going, maybe Aunt Jo wants me to pick up a vial of belladonna or something from the apothecary” 

She doesn’t stop him.

He slowly withdraws into the main corridor and makes his way to the front door hoping to be swallowed by the night. 

Something had happened.

Something had changed.

The sun had set. 

The night was beginning to rise. 

When we make our choices, we also accept their costs.

You can't pull back an arrow. You can't turn back time. 

Wondering what we could have done differently, just...

_Doesn’t matter now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, hello. It has been forever since the two of us have met. Bet you thought I was never going to update. Well, dear reader, you cannot get rid of me this easily. 
> 
> A storm is brewing, literally and metaphorically, and it is determined to leave Anne and Gilbert swept and tempest-tossed. 
> 
> Who they choose to be, is who they will become. 
> 
> Keep your hats close, the wind is picking up.


End file.
